


Faultlines

by Juliana_Homicide



Category: Captain America: The First Avenger - Fandom, The Avengers, captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliana_Homicide/pseuds/Juliana_Homicide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve cannot forget</p>
<p>Songfic of _faultlines_ by Katherine Polwart</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faultlines

**Author's Note:**

> I might have made myself cry by it's late so maybe my eyes are just watering
> 
> Listen to the song here (its the first one) > http://vimeo.com/m/78230087
> 
> No beta bc I couldn't be bothered

_Have you ever held something until your hands were aching?_

Steve remembers it, holding still and silent through his mothers funeral. He hadn't cried, hadn't so much as trembled when he delivered her eulogy. He'd only watched, watched as she was carried out of the church, watched as she was lowered into the ground, watched as shovelfuls of earth began to fall into her grave.

He'd stayed quiet and resolute, even when Bucky had caught up to him and offered his apartment. He wasn't weak, he didn't need help, but Bucky was so earnest that he finally agreed.

_And then let it go, and watched it fall, and listened to it breaking?_

Only late at night, when he was sure Bucky was asleep, did he allow himself to cry.

**~~~~~**

_I have held back time and tide, when all the world was plenty._

In the mess tent after they had returned to camp triumphant, extra rations had been distributed to everyone. It had been a celebration, a fucking feast in the European Theatre, because they'd gotten their brothers back.

_Brothers,_ that's what Steve had tried to tell himself as a tipsy Bucky had come begging for cuddles in their tent that night.

Just brothers.

_But now my hands are open wide, open wide and empty._

Steve stands at the window, moonlight slanting in to illuminate the picture in his hands.

"I love you, James Buchanan Barnes," he whispers, waiting for a response he knows he won't get.

His arms ache for someone to hold.

**~~~~~**

_For every breath that leaves me now, another comes to fill me._

Steve only wishes that he didn't have to breathe anymore.

**~~~~~**

_And for every death that grieves me now,_

_**"BUCKY!"** _

Steve sits bolt upright, reaching out for a ghostly hand before it shimmers away and he's back in his bedroom.

He lays back slowly, sinking into the too-soft mattress, and tries to sleep.

_the next will surely kill me._

**~~~~~**

_For those borders crumble every day, the faultlines are showing._

As the Avengers fight amongst themselves, Steve bites back a wish for a team that used to work so perfectly they took down the Red Skull.

**~~~~~**

_And all I thought was here to stay slowly is going._

The Captain America exhibit will be touring the country soon.

Maybe it's for the best.

**~~~~~**

_History abandons us,_

Because anyway, the exhibit doesn't have the two boxes of things that Peggy managed to save from the Howling Commandos. And Steve doubts that anyone would care about any of it, a pinecone from a German forest, a drawing from a little girl on paper so brittle it had snapped in his hands.

_and we’re holding on, holding on_

Steve spots the jar at the bottom of the second box, "For Steve" scrawled across the lid in Bucky's faded handwriting. Steve's heart leaps into his throat, and he pulls the jar out carefully and looks inside to see what appears to be a postcard and a snapshot.

_to nothing but dirt and dust._

But the cardstock had been eaten away years ago by moisture in the jar, and Steve can't bring himself to look at the slightly less damaged picture.

The jar goes out with the recycling the next morning.

_We’re holding on, holding on._

He does keep the pinecone.

**~~~~~**

_While those borders crumble every day, the faultlines are showing._

When he meets Sam, Steve knows the other soldier can see how badly he's broken.

He knows Sam can see him falling apart.

**~~~~~**

_And all I thought was here to stay, slowly is going._

Steve watches as Nick Fury dies.

It doesn't seem possible.

But then, he never thought he'd lose Bucky, either.

**~~~~~**

_**Have you ever held something until your hands were aching?** _

_"Bucky?"_

_**Then let it go, and watched it fall, and listened to it breaking?** _

_"Who the hell is Bucky?"_


End file.
